When shale oil is derived from oil shale several problems are presented. One problem has to do with the disposal of reactants resulting from the shale oil retorting process. In the retorting process, reactants such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon oxides and spent shale present special problems for disposal. Contained in spent shale are some strategic metals. It is beneficial to recover these metals. These strategic metals include uranium, cobalt, nickel, niobium, aluminum, iron, manganese, chromium, and vanadium, etc. Others have provided methods for disposal of the reactants resulting from oil retorting processes. Still others have reclaimed strategic metals which are found in the oil shale matrix.
Stover, in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 31,363, reissued Aug. 30, 1983, sought to provide a method for reducing the nitrogen content of shale oil by selectively removing therefrom nitrogen-containing compounds. The nitrogen content of shale was reduced by contacting the shale oil with a sufficient amount of a solvent which was selective toward the nitrogen-containing compounds present in the shale oil. This solvent was a mixture comprised of an organic acid and a mineral acid. The mineral acid was selected from the group consisting of hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, nitrous acid, sulfuric acid, sulfurous acid, phosphoric acid and mixtures thereof.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,886, issued to Honaker, on Oct. 3, 1978, a method was disclosed for removing acidic impurities from off-gases generated in the retorting of oil shale. This included contacting a rubblized mass of oil shale which had been substantially depleted in hydrocarbonaceous material with water, so as to extract components from the mass. Subsequently, off-gases, which were generated during the retorting of oil shale and which contained acidic impurities, were contacted with the water containing basic components so as to substantially remove the acidic impurities from said off-gases.
Smith, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,159,940, issued July 3, 1979 provided a method for removing nitrogen from an essentially liquid syncrude feed obtained from at least one of oil shale, tar sands, and coal wherein the snycrude was mixed with an acid selected from the group consisting sulfuric, phosphoric, hydrochloric, and combinations thereof. From this mixture a first phase was settled which was composed of syncrude low in nitrogen and a second phase composed of acid and syncrude high in nitrogen. These two phases were separated and the high nitrogen containing phase was catalytically hydrotreated to reduce its nitrogen content.
In another method, kerogen-containing shale was crushed and comminuted to a fineness sufficient to free kerogen and sulphides present in said shale. To enable the shale to be finely divided more readily, the crushed shale was subjected to a leaching treatment prior to final communition thereof. This patent issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,176,042 on Nov. 27, 1979 to Falstrom.
None of the above methods provided an integrated method for disposing of undesired reactant products from the retorting process and using those undesired reactant products in combination with the product shale oil and spent shale. Moreover, providing a nitrogen rich oil, created via the retorting process and hydrogenated to serve as a solubilizing agent for oil shale in a retorting process was not provided for.